Coming Up Next. Penny Smith

either been renamed or would be available from the deli down the road.

      She paid for the food, put it into the boot of the car and walked briskly to the deli, where she had to stand in a queue of people who nudged each other. Just the really useful shop, then I’m home and dry, she thought, as she entered Oddbins.

      A handsome young man was only too pleased to help her make her selection. Originally she had planned to buy half a dozen bottles of wine, then decided she’d get whisky, vodka and gin too. No point in being stingy about the important aspects of living.

      ‘A party?’ he asked, as she placed the bottle of ten-year-old Laphroaig on the counter.

      ‘No, not yet,’ she answered, smiling and looking directly into his blue eyes.

      ‘Do I know you?’ he asked.

      ‘I don’t think so. Common face, I expect,’ said Katie, quickly.

      ‘Yes, I do – I do. Give me a moment, and I’ll remember.’

      ‘Mm. My parents live round here. I’ve been in loads of times before.’

      ‘That’ll be it, then.’

      Katie smiled and hoped that was the end of the matter.

      But no.

      As she handed over her credit card, he read the name, and suddenly said, ‘You’re the one who was sacked from breakfast television, aren’t you? Katie Fisher. I thought I knew the face.’

      ‘Thank you. Yes, that’s right. I think I’m going to need double bags round these. If you pass me another, I’ll do it my side.’ She couldn’t wait to leave the shop, and because she was fumbling with her handbag, and the double bags, there was suddenly an almighty smash and she was bent over the pavement with the whisky bottle in pieces on the ground – with splashes on her clothes. Just as a photographer from the local paper, alerted to Katie’s appearance in town, took a snap of her. Followed by another as she rushed down the street, with her three carrier-bags of heavy bottles. ‘You’re not helping, you know,’ she puffed, as she sped along to the car park.

      He took another five pictures.

      ‘Will you please stop that? You must have enough now,’ she said, as she put the bags into the car.

      The shutter whirred. ‘Katie, look this way,’ he shouted, as though she was miles away.

      Now without the bags, she turned and smiled her best fake smile. ‘Thank you. You’ve really made my day,’ she said to him sarcastically, and stalked round to the driver’s side.

      He continued to take pictures as she drove away. She hoped – but without much hope involved – that the pictures would appear in the local rag and nowhere else. She felt like crying. There was nothing they liked better than kicking you when you were down. Why couldn’t he have appeared when all she’d had in her bags was fruit, vegetables and things with unpronounceable names?

      At least the car had started first time, and she’d been able to accelerate slightly towards the photographer. She felt like doing a wanker sign out of the window, but managed to hold on to her common sense for long enough to realize that it would look worse than any of the other photographs.

      The thing about those pictures was that she couldn’t do anything about them. If she phoned Jim Break and told him to get on to the newspapers, first, it would merely alert them to the pictures’ existence, and second, they wouldn’t let her put a spin on the copy anyway. She was stuffed. She was as good as rolled up with pâté, baked in pastry and called Wellington.

      She’d have to grin and bear it.

      Or gin and bear it.

      That was the solution.

      She drove home, mouth watering. She could almost see the slice of lemon. Smell that petrolly smell. Hear the ice crackling in the glass.

      Yes, after a few of those, nothing ever seemed quite as bad.

      At home, her parents had been having ‘a conversation’. Her father, always her champion, had been defending her right to spend as long as she wanted with them. Her mother, who generally had the bigger picture in mind, thought it was about time she went back to her flat and got herself sorted out. ‘You have to be cruel to be kind, Jack,’ she said. ‘The longer she stays here, the worse it will be in the long term. If she’s on her own, she’ll get things done. You know how she is. But while she’s here, everything’s on hold. If she had no money and nowhere to go, it would be another matter.’ Her eyes strayed to the large number of bottles in the recycling bin outside the back door. ‘If she’s not careful, she’ll sink into a Slough of Despond and be unable to crawl out. There’s quite a lot of alcohol being consumed here – and you know how she hates to put on too much weight. You keep cooking, she’ll keep eating, and before you know it we’ll be back to those slimming tablets she took last time, when she was bouncing off the walls and we virtually had to get everything reinforced in case she literally brought the house down.’

      Jack huffed, and said she’d been too thin when she’d arrived and he was making her look pretty again.